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The Patients And
Physicians Alliance (P.A.P.A.) was formed in 2002 by
concerned medical practitioners to ensure quality medical care
can continue to be delivered to Pennsylvania’s patients. To
achieve that goal, P.A.P.A. has led the charge for tort reform,
taking the battle to the grassroots.
At the time of
P.A.P.A.’s formation, thousands of physicians across the
commonwealth were forced to close their practices, curtail
services, or take early retirements because of skyrocketing
medical liability insurance rates. Those dramatic medical
liability premium increases were a direct result of rampant
lawsuit abuse by Pennsylvania’s trial lawyers. Such abuse
included recruiting patients with bad outcomes to sue for
medical malpractice, and suing everyone named on the patient’s
chart—regardless if they had contact with the patient or not.
Trial lawyers also mastered the game of cornering physicians
into settling out of court—a practice which contributes to
driving up liability insurance premiums across the board.
The Pennsylvania
Trial Lawyers Association (PATLA) has poured vaults of cash into
judicial, legislative, and gubernatorial races to ensure their
cases can be argued before sympathetic peers, and that calls for
tort reform will fall upon legislative ears that suffer from
selective deafness. Those electoral investments quickly paid off
with dividends. Between 2000 and 2004, Pennsylvania insurers
paid out $2.01 billion in medical malpractice claims awarded by
jackpot juries—with trial lawyers taking home 40% in contingency
fees, plus expenses.
P.A.P.A. realizes
tort reform in Pennsylvania cannot be won by lobbying or
negotiation. Instead, it must be won by electing reform-minded
candidates, which can only be done by stimulating enough outrage
within the electorate that voters will act accordingly.
There is now basis to
generate such outrage as the trial lawyers’ assault against
Pennsylvania’s physicians has turned deadly. At least ten recent
deaths have occurred due to a statewide neurosurgeon shortage.
P.A.P.A. is confident there are more casualties to be
discovered.
Home to the most
prestigious medical schools in the world, Pennsylvania also
bears the ironic distinction of being one of the most hostile
medical liability lawsuit battlegrounds in the country.
Philadelphia, the city known for producing some of the country’s
finest physicians, has seen closure after closure of medical
facilities, and particularly, maternity units. Most recently,
Frankford Torresdale Hospital closed its maternity unit, citing
medical liability costs as a contributor. A mother who shows up
to the hospital with an obstetrical emergency such as the baby
losing oxygen to its brain will more than likely lose her child.
P.A.P.A. has been
successful in getting the public’s attention through special
news reports and front page coverage. However, trial lawyers
have been at their game for decades, painting physicians as
greedy misers who make millions on the backs of poor patients.
It will take time to get the public to understand this is not a
fight between rich lawyer and rich doctor, but rather, a very
real war in which very real people are now beginning to pay the
ultimate price.
Please click on the following links for an insight to some of
P.A.P.A.’s activities: |
